


Uninnocent/Inelegant

by DyrneKeeper



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-09
Updated: 2013-02-09
Packaged: 2017-11-28 17:59:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/677249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DyrneKeeper/pseuds/DyrneKeeper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Kurt had imagined living with Blaine in New York, he had never imagined this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Week One

_Week One_

Rachel’s at the stove trying to make vegan french toast when her laptop - pumping Barbara, of course - trills loudly.

“Coming!” she yells, even though whoever’s skyping her won’t be able to hear her. She gives the toast one last poke in the pan, trying to judge if it’ll burn in the thirty seconds it will take to answer the call. It’ll hold, she decides, and scurries out of the tiny kitchen into the tiny living room-slash-dining room-slash-rehearsal space, and hits “answer.”

“Hello?” Rachel uses the tiny picture- in-picture window to make sure her hair’s presentable while she waits for the video to load. There’s never a reason to look less than your best, after all.

“Hi, Rachel.” Kurt sounds tired, and when the screen finally flickers to life with his picture on it, he looks tired, too. Well - no wonder.

“Kurt!” she chirps, folding her hands on the desk in front of her. “How are you?”

Even Kurt’s smile is tired. “I’m fine. How are your adventures in Finn-approved vegan cooking?”

“They’re - oh, shoot, just a minute -” Rachel scrambles out of her chair and back into the kitchen to check the toast. Not too burned, thank goodness. She flips it and brings her laptop back with her, setting it on the counter so she can keep an eye on it - when Kurt calls these days she’s never sure how long she’ll be on the line.

“It’s good, I think! Thanks for the recipes, by the way, he loved those eggless omelettes.”

“It’s no problem. Let me know if you want any more ideas. He’s actually far less picky than he wants you to think.”

Duly noted,” Rachel tries to give a conspiratorial grin, but Kurt doesn’t return it. He’s toying with something on the desk at his end, and through the open door of his bedroom Rachel can see a light flick on in the hallway.

“I found a new place,” he finally says, and Rachel has to stifle a gasp behind her hand. She’s relieved - she should be relieved - or she knows she should be. Instead she just feels terribly, horribly, sad.

“Oh. Kurt, that’s - wonderful! Where?”

“Just a few blocks over, still close enough to the school. One of the girls in my stagecraft class is going abroad next semester, so she’s subletting.”

Rachel can hear footsteps from his end, and Blaine’s silhouette passes behind Kurt down the hallway. Kurt continues as though he hasn’t heard anything. “The only downside is that she’s not leaving until December, so it’s going to be another six weeks or so. But it’s the best place I’ve been able to find. Well.” Kurt leans his head heavily on a hand. “It’s the only workable place I’ve been able to find.”

Rachel gives the toast another poke with the spatula, then flips it onto a plate and grabs the tongs to transfer a new piece into the pan. Six weeks, is it.

“Let us know when you have the details settled. We’ll help you move your stuff. Well, Finn will help you move.” She tries another grin, and this time gets a weak smile in return. “And I will help you decorate.”

Kurt actually comes back to life a little at that. “Rachel, no, you’re never allowed anywhere near my decorating scheme. If you promise to be very careful, I will let you hang pictures. Where I tell you to.”

“Oh, fine,” Rachel sighs airily. “Let us know, though.”

Kurt nods. “I will. And Rach - thanks.”

She looks away from the pan to the screen. God, he looks _exhausted._ “Of course, Kurt. And if there’s anything - please let me know.”

He nods, but doesn’t say anything else, and the laptop chirps again as he ends the call. She gives the toast an extra jab as the screen goes dark, then goes through her playlists looking for something more mood-appropriate. Maybe _Wicked._

*

“No Good Deed” is blasting at full volume when a key scrapes in the lock and Finn pushes the door open. He kicks his backpack to the side of the entryway and throws his arms over his head.

“I got a part!”

Rachel fights back the fleeting urge to stomp her foot. “Oh, Finn!” She drops the spoon in the pitcher where she’s making orange juice (from concentrate; Kurt will never need to know, and Finn doesn’t care) and gets swept up in a hug. “That’s amazing! What’s the part?”

“Biff! In _Death of a Salesman._ ”

Why does all the good news today seem so bad? “That’s incredible, sweetheart! I’m so proud of you.”

“Yeah, it’s awesome! It’s a lead and everything! Rehearsals start next week, can you help me plan a practice schedule? You’re like, so much better with this stuff.”

“Of course!” Rachel claps her hands together and makes herself smile.

Finn opens the oven where the toast is keeping warm. “Oh, man, that smells amazing. Hey, did you hear anything about that callback?”

Rachel opens a cupboard and takes down two plates, two glasses. “Yes. I didn’t get it.”

“Oh, man, I’m sorry. That director was a jerk, anyway, you don’t want to work with him.”

Rachel tells herself Finn’s being enthusiastic, not condescending, and plasters a smile on before she turns back around. “Thanks, Finn. In the meantime I’m going to keep practicing. I just haven’t found the right part to suitably display my talent.”

Finn kisses her noisily on the hair as he grabs the plate out of the oven and makes for the table. “You are more talented than everyone.”

Rachel follows with the orange juice and cutlery, and for the first time all evening feels a little bit warm.

*

Finn’s brought the mail in with him, and Rachel sorts through it after dinner while Finn rocks out to The Doors at the sink as he does dishes. Credit card offers will get tossed in her bag to shred at work, a new booklet for the winter season at the Gershwin will go on her desk - but her attention is immediately caught by a thick, heavy envelope, addressed to Miss Rachel Berry and Mr. Finn Hudson in a very looping and very neat font.

“Finn!”

“Yeah?”

“Did you see this?”

Finn rinses a glass and looks over his shoulder. “Yeah, I just thought it was one of those fancy museum membership things your dads got us.”

Rachel bounces on her toes. “No, Finn, this is a wedding invitation!”

“Really?” Finn’s eyes brighten. “Awesome! Wait. Who do we know who got engaged?”

Rachel grins at him over the edge of the envelope as she carefully slits it open.

 

_Emma Pillsbury_  
and  
William Schuester  
request the honor of your presence at their marriage  
on Saturday, the 30th of November  
two thousand thirteen  
at six o'clock in the evening

“Mr. Schue and Miss Pillsbury! No way! Mom said they’d never actually go through with it.” He plucks the invitation from Rachel, ignoring her squeaks about parchment and dishwater hands. “November 30. That’s in like...five weeks!”

Rachel nods, and flits to her desk for her planner. “That is _just_ enough time to put together a performance that will showcase my - I mean, our - considerable talents. Your mom and Burt’s wedding was lovely but that was three years ago and our abilities have improved _considerably_ since then, though we haven’t worked together as a group in a year so that will be an added challenge. Oh! We can have rehearsals over Skype!”

Finn slings the dishtowel over his shoulder and smiles at her from the doorway. “It’ll be cool to see everyone again.” His phone beeps in his pocket, and he checks it as Rachel flips through her address book and wonders if Mercedes has Sam’s new address.

“Hey, Blaine says he got an invite too.”

“Oh?” Rachel bites her lip.

“Yeah, he, um, wants to know what our travel plans are, so we can go together.”

Rachel worries her lip between her teeth before she can stop herself. “Okay. Let me - find out what Kurt’s doing.”

“Cool.” Finn pockets his phone again and returns to the dishes.

“Hey!” He calls from the doorway of the kitchen a few minutes later. “Does this mean I have to wear a cummerbund again?”

*

Kurt knows he’s overslept when he wakes up not to the gentle chime of his phone but the obnoxious clangor of Blaine’s stupid vintage alarm clock. He fumbles for his phone; he’d forgotten to turn the ringer back on after his stint in the library last night. Perfect. He doesn’t have time to make breakfast and get back to his room before Blaine gets out of the bathroom so he’s stuck here until he leaves, so Kurt lies on his bed and stares at the ceiling and tries to plan his day while he waits for the water to shut off. Class this morning. Internship at the theatre in the afternoon.

The pipes clunk and the sound of running water stops. Something gets dropped, and there’s a soft tap as it’s set back into place. Audition after dinner. Maybe Rachel and Finn’s after that; Rachel’s going to have ideas she’ll want to work on for Mr. Schue’s wedding.

Footsteps in the kitchen, now, the refrigerator opening and closing, then the front door opening and closing, and the deadbolt sliding back into place. Kurt squeezes his eyes shut, takes a deep breath, opens them again and makes himself get out of bed.

The bathroom mirror is still fogged. The bathmat is hung neatly on the edge of the tub but there are spots of water on the floor that Kurt’s bare heel drags through. When he opens the medicine cabinet for his toothpaste he notices that Blaine’s allergy prescription is almost out. He has a refill left, though - good.

Kurt eats a bagel at his desk while he scrolls through his email before class; all group projects are still going according to schedule, which can’t last for long but is something to be grateful for for as long as it lasts. He checks the weather one last time and grabs a coat from his closet. At the door he buttons it up, kicks the boots that aren’t his out of the way, swings his bag over his shoulder, and digs his keys out of a side pocket.

One day less, now.

*

It’s late. It’s quiet. Blaine is alone in the apartment.

Rachel had texted him earlier, _Rehearsing_ , so Kurt won’t be back until much later than it is now, if he comes back at all. Probably pieces for the wedding.

The wedding. Blaine doesn’t want to go. Tina will be hurt and Mercedes will be bitchy and god a week alone here in New York would be such a blessing but they will talk, the whole Glee club, and Blaine is not going to give them the satisfaction of letting them go at it behind his back. Besides, he learned a lot from Mr. Schuester. He owes him this.

The light on the coffee maker flips from red to green; Blaine pours himself a cup and leaves the rest. He doesn’t know if Kurt drinks it or dumps it but it’s always gone in the morning.

His room is harsh and brightly-lit; his floor lamp burnt out the first week of September and Blaine hadn’t known where to get bulbs, so he has just the overhead and a small, weak desk lamp from home. He clicks that on, flicks off the fluorescent overhead, and stretches out on his bed with his problem set, his notebook, and his calculator. There’s nothing like statistics to make a long evening longer.

Halfway through the fifth problem he reaches for his eraser and comes up empty; it’s not on the bed, not on his desk, oh, it must be in -

He’s through the door and halfway across the room to Kurt’s desk before he catches himself this time. Usually it’s sooner, only occasionally does he make it farther, but by now Blaine has lost track of the number of times he’s wandered into Kurt’s room looking for something - a tie, a shoe (someone to talk to?). Sometimes he accidentally wanders in not looking for anything, just walking through a room he’s forgotten isn’t part of his space.

Blaine backs out of the room, slowly. Kurt’s laptop is open on his desk but the screen is dark; there’s a book on the nightstand and his phone charger plugged into the wall. The room is always so spotless but little things move around, when Blaine’s not here to see. It’s like living with a ghost.

Back in his own room, on his own bed, the silence is deafening and Blaine plugs in his laptop speakers and turns on Pandora. The music is still on when he wakes up the next morning, still dressed, sprawled out on top of the covers and his stats homework.

*

In bed, curled up against Finn’s side while he strokes her hair, Rachel says quietly, “Kurt found a new apartment.”

Finn’s hand stills. “That’s a good thing, right? You know they’ve both been looking for ages.”

Rachel sighs and wriggles closer to Finn. She feels untethered. “I know. It just feels...really real, now.”

Finn is silent, and Rachel goes on. “I just never thought they’d really end it, you know? They’d fought before, they always got over it!”

He sighs and resumes petting at her hair. “It was different, this time.”

“Yes but why?” Rachel shakes off his hand and sits up in bed, folding her arms. “They both still love each other, you know they do! Why else would they be so miserable? They were high school sweethearts! Like us! They were _perfect_ together!” She bites her lip and adds, more forcefully, “...Like us!”

“They have to live with their ex, of course they’re miserable.”

“No,” Rachel shakes her head stubbornly. “No. They can fix it, I _know_ they can. They just need some help.” Suddenly determined, she climbs out of bed and pads on socked feet (the floors are always so cold) to the dresser, where she pulls open a drawer and rummages until she finds the little velvet box.

“What - ?”

“Blaine gave it to me, after. To - keep.” She rubs her thumb over the worn velvet. She swallows, blinks suddenly and hard. Five weeks, and then the wedding. Five weeks. Long enough to put together a stunning performance worthy of her two favorite teachers, certainly long enough for this. She stands up again and nestles the box into the stack of clothes she’s already gotten out of the closet and piled on her chair, candidates for the ceremony and the reception for Kurt to help her go through and alter.

“Rach, what are you doing?”

Rachel looks at Finn, his knees pulled up to his chest under the - their - comforter. Not all high school romances were supposed to last. But some of them are.

“Keeping it for him. He’s going to need it again.”

*

Finn lies in bed after Rachel’s already left - he doesn’t have class until ten, and she has an early shift at the admissions office, where she has work-study a few hours a week. Blaine’s ring box is still sitting on top of Rachel’s clothes, and he considers moving it back to Rachel’s drawer to keep it safe, except that Rachel would probably flip out at him for touching it. He can’t believe she actually thinks she can do this. Sure, Finn would like them to be dating again, but Rachel wasn’t there to see how completely they’d fallen apart.

It had been at Blaine’s graduation party. It was weird, for Finn, being back in Lima after a year in New York, and in between taking pictures before the 2013 Senior Prom and bouncing between graduation parties for Sam and Artie and Tina, he had felt in a bit of a time warp, like the past year hadn’t happened at all and it was his class graduating again. Blaine’s had been the last, at the end of June; Kurt was in on the planning and wanted to be sure that Cooper could come between his acting stints.

It had been a hot, sticky day; Finn had wanted to jump in the Anderson’s pool but he didn’t have his swim trunks and no one else was swimming anyway. It had gotten cooler, but no less humid, as the sun went down, and it was a damp, warm night as Puck lit the torches on the patio and Santana and Cooper dragged another cooler out from the garage. Blaine was in a deck chair with Kurt stretched out half on top of him; Finn remembers that, particularly. Kurt hates to share his space, normally, especially when it’s hot out, yet Finn had never seen him looking so comfortable.

Rachel had tucked herself under Finn’s arm, sipping at a wine cooler, and Sam had started strumming at his guitar as Blaine had whispered something to Kurt and then worked himself out of the chair. Kurt had watched him go, eyes bright in the torchlight. He hadn’t talked about anything for weeks except how amazing next year was going to be, with Blaine in the city with them; they’d already got an apartment down the block from the one Finn and Rachel found.

Blaine had come back, a few minutes later, twitching something in his hand and looking...nervous. Kurt had raised an arm for him to slide back into their chair but Blaine had just stood in front of him, rocking on his toes, and Rachel had noticed and gasped and grabbed Finn’s arm.

“Is he - ?” She’d breathed, and Finn hadn’t had time to answer or figure out what was going on before Blaine was going down on one knee and Kurt was sitting bolt upright.

Everyone was looking at the two of them, Tina squealing between her fingers, Sam grinning and strumming a dramatic chord, Rachel’s fingers gripping Finn’s arm painfully tightly. Finn could see the side of Blaine’s face, the smile there, and sitting above him Kurt, his face gone even paler than normal.

Kurt’s eyes had darted from Blaine, on his knees, that velvet box in his hands, to the crowd around them, friends and relatives and classmates, and something in his face - shifted, and then he had smiled, bright and sudden, and leaned down to kiss Blaine. The girls had shrieked and clapped and the guys had cheered but Finn couldn’t take his eyes off Kurt’s face. Blaine was too excited to notice, maybe, one arm wrapped around Kurt’s waist and a thousand-watt smile, but Kurt’s shoulders were stiff and his smile didn’t reach his eyes and all the loose comfort that had been in his body fifteen minutes ago was gone.

“Isn’t that the sweetest thing?” Rachel had crooned. Finn had let himself be dragged into a squirming, happy group-hug.

Blaine’s house had been full of out-of-town relatives so Kurt and Blaine had come back to the Hummel-Hudson’s for the night. Curled up on his bed in the dark, Finn had texted Rachel, _theyre fighting_.

_No! Maybe they’re just being...enthusiastic..._

Kurt’s voice drifting down the hallway, high and shrill, Blaine’s running low and angry. A moment of silence. A sudden burst of words. The click of a door swinging open, Blaine’s voice suddenly sharp and close, and Finn had pressed his head into the pillow so as not to hear.

When he’d taken the pillow off, the hallway was silent, and when Finn went to the bathroom Kurt’s door was closed, again. When he’d looked out of the window at the top of the stairs, Blaine’s car hadn’t been in the driveway.

Finn’s phone had buzzed.   _They’ll work it out_.

They didn’t.


	2. Week One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Kurt had imagined living with Blaine in New York, he had never imagined this.

_Week Two_

To: Blaine  
From: Rachel  
 _Drama program party is tonight and I need a wingman._

To: Kurt  
From: Rachel  
 _Drama program party is tonight and I need a wingman._

To: Rachel  
From: Blaine  
 _What about Finn?_

To: Rachel  
From: Kurt  
 _Isn’t Finn your wingman? Being your, you know, fiance?_

To: Blaine  
From: Rachel  
 _He’s going to be busy and all of the girls in our program hate me._

To: Kurt  
From: Rachel  
 _He’s going to be busy and all of the girls in our program hate me._

To: Rachel  
From: Kurt  
 _I told you you could not pull off The Boy Is Mine._

To: Rachel  
From: Kurt  
 _I’ll be there. If only to avert any further disasters._

To: Blaine  
From: Rachel  
 _Plus you and I haven’t gotten to sing together in aaaaages. Come make me look fabulous?_

To: Rachel  
From: Blaine  
 _Flattery will get you nowhere. What time?_

To: Blaine  
From: Rachel  
 _Yay! The Atrium at 8?_

To: Kurt  
From: Rachel  
 _You bet you will, mister. The Atrium at 8._

To: Rachel  
From: Blaine  
 _I’ll be there._

To: Rachel  
From: Kurt  
 _I’ll be there._

Rachel twirls in the bedroom as Finn hops on one foot pulling a sock on. “What’re you doing?”

“Inviting Kurt and Blaine to your party.”

“...are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“Of course it is! Blaine needs a break from school and Kurt and I can work on our selections for the wedding. And Blaine promised he’d sing with me.”

“Yeah, but -”

Rachel interrupts Finn with a glance at the clock on the nightstand. “You’re going to be late. Do you have your script?”

He holds it up in one hand as he shrugs on a hoodie. “Are you going to be rehearsing this afternoon?”

“Yes, of course. I’ll be in the practice rooms, come get me when you’re done.”

“Alright.” Finn kisses her absently on the forehead and grabs his bag on his way out the door.

“I love you!”

“Love you too,” Finn’s voice floats from the front door before it shuts.

*

Blaine is, naturally, politely early. Kurt is, equally naturally, fashionably late. Rachel has steered Blaine to a corner where she can see Finn _and_ keep an eye on the door, and tries to engage Blaine in conversation in the meantime.

“So, Blaine, how did your meeting with your director go?”

Blaine shrugs. “It went okay. I told him I was thinking about quitting.”

“That’s good - wait, what?” Rachel’s attention snaps back to Blaine, and she almost misses the door opening and the sight of Kurt drifting in, pink-cheeked from the cold outside.

“Yeah,” Blaine’s suddenly quite interested in his shoes. Or maybe hers. “It’s a lot, with everything else going on. It would be good to have the extra time to study, and,” he trails off with another shrug. “I...just haven’t felt like singing.”

“Well,” Rachel latches onto Blaine’s arm. Over his shoulder, she can see Kurt skim the room and then beeline for Finn. “Then that’s the perfect time to be singing, isn’t it? You need an outlet for all of those feelings!”

Blaine shrugs again. “I’ll see. I’m not going to make any decisions until after...” Blaine’s eyes flicker to the side, and he rolls his shoulders and smiles, weakly. “After the wedding. Things might get easier after that.”

“Oh, yes.” Rachel drops his arm to clap her hands together. “And who knows what might happen in the meantime?” Blaine looks like he wants to ask what she means, but she grabs his hand and drags him towards the bar. “Now come on. We need to talk song selection.”

*

One of these days, Kurt is going to learn to never, ever let Rachel drink at parties. She’s a glass and a half into something pink, well on her way to being Distraught, and Kurt does not want to be here dealing with this right now.

“For the nineteenth time, Finn is not going to cheat on you with Jill. It does not matter how tall, or blonde, or pretty she is.”

“But she’s always - flirting with him, and hanging on his arm -”

Kurt looks across the room to where Finn is chatting - amicably - to a tall girl in a low-cut blue dress who, yes, most certainly, has the charm turned up to eleven. “Rach, if it bothers you that much, why don’t you go over there?”

Her glare would be amusing if this weren’t the third time tonight she’d trained it on him. “Because someone told me not to make a spectacle of myself!”

“Yes, and part of that lesson was to know what levels of possessiveness are socially acceptable. It is perfectly socially acceptable for you to join that conversation. So long as!” He holds up a finger. “You do not make out right in front of her.”

“I do not -!” Kurt just raises an eyebrow at her, and Rachel deflates.

“Seriously, Rachel, what is with you? You’ve been twitchy about Finn for over a week.”

Rachel, if possible, deflates further. “He got the part.”

Kurt nods. “Yes, he told me. Why is that bad news?”

Her face scrunches up, and Kurt thinks frantically that he doesn’t have any tissues on him. She just blinks a couple of times, though, and sighs mournfully. “And I _didn’t._ ”

Kurt fights back a sigh; he’s sympathetic, but this is starting to get old. “Again, not bad news. Not end-of-the-world bad news,” he amends, when Rachel glares up at him again. “We’ve talked about this before, you just have to get out a bit more. Get out of your comfort zone, try some new things.”

“But what if -” Rachel takes a deep breath in, sighs it out heavily. “Remember back when we first started going out. Finn was this big popular football star, and he was dating Quinn, and I was just this little - just this little girl from showchoir and _everyone_ hated me -” Rachel blinks rapidly and Kurt tries to hide the twitch of his mouth behind his glass. “But eventually Finn saw how - how good I was, and finally decided that I was worth it even if I wasn’t as popular as Quinn.”

“Yes, Rachel, I was there,” Kurt says, but Rachel keeps talking right over him.

“But - he was still always really worried about his - image, and his popularity, and I don’t think that ever really went away, Glee club just started getting a little...cooler. You know, once we started winning. Or maybe people started caring less, after, Dave, it just wasn’t such an issue anymore...”

“I remember,” Kurt says blandly.

“But he still _obviously_ cares about fitting in and being popular and now he’s really, _really_ popular at school, and he’s getting all these parts and doing really well and I’m just the uncool girlfriend again except this time I can’t even get any parts to show everyone how amazing I am and Finn spends all day with girls who _can_ and one of these days he’s going to find someone talent with an amazing voice who he has _really_ amazing chemistry with and I’m always going to be this stupid little girl from Ohio who really never was good enough and Finn’s going to _leave_ me -”

Kurt puts a hand on her arm. “You know that’s crazy, he came to New York to be with you, he loves you, Rachel -”

“But what if that’s not enough!” Rachel wails, and then drops her voice when a girl standing nearby turns around to stare.“He’s been so...distant, since we got back to school, and he’s hardly ever home as it is and now that he has this part he’s never going to be around and sometimes it just doesn’t even feel like we’re an “us” anymore.”

“Have you tried talking to him about it?”

“Yes! Of course. Sort of.”

“Rachel.”

“He’s hardly ever home!”

“Well, make time, then. Meet him for lunch, or go out to dinner, or...something.”

“What you have is special, Rachel, don’t let it slip away.”

The voice suddenly at Kurt’s elbow makes him jump. Kurt’s been focusing on Rachel, he’d almost forgotten Blaine was even here, and now he is suddenly, shockingly, uneasily close, the slope of his shoulder in a sweater Kurt had picked out for him, _before_ , and Kurt _shouldn’t be looking_ but he can _feel_ Blaine’s proximity; they live in the same fucking apartment but are never even in the same room -

“Oh, now look who’s Mr. Wise Encouragement.” All traces of upset are suddenly gone, and Rachel’s eyes are wickedly wide as they dance between him and Blaine. What is she doing?

“You know me,” Blaine gives her a show smile and a wink. As he’s turning away his eyes catch Kurt’s because Kurt can’t stop looking, and he’s dimly aware of Rachel holding herself very, very still, like a naturalist trying not to startle a shy deer. Mostly, though, he’s aware of Blaine, the indecipherable brown of his eyes, and then Blaine is gone and Kurt is staring at the wall behind where he had been, feeling flushed and wrung out and all he had done was _look._

Rachel looks like she’s about to say something and and oh. _Oh._

That...explains a lot, actually. He draws a breath, but it doesn’t calm his racing heartbeat. He needs to...he just needs -

“I, um. Just going to go. Washroom.” Rachel’s eyes are still too wide and too bright and he flees.

In the bathroom Kurt dabs water on his face and is surprised to find that it does actually help, the cold splash on his skin like cool evening air after a night in a crowded, overheated gym. He lets it wash away the heat, the flush, the feeling that _something_ had _happened_ , but his skin feels too sensitive and when he dries his hands the paper towels feel like sandpaper. When he returns to the bar Rachel is gone and Blaine is nowhere to be seen.

*

Finn still hasn’t been able to figure out the coffee maker so Kurt sets it up for a pot of decaf while Finn flips on lights in the living room.

“You’re sure Rachel didn’t mind you leaving her at the party?” Kurt leans on the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest.

“Naw, she said she was fine. She wanted to catch up with Blaine anyway.” Rachel had practically shoved him out the door of the bar, actually, and had ignored him when he’d asked, “But what about your plan?” So now he and Kurt are back at their apartment - not theirs, the one all three of them had shared last year, and no matter how much time Kurt spends here he never seems really comfortable. He’s particularly twitchy tonight, rocking his ankle back and forth.

Kurt finally clicks his tongue in the back of his throat but doesn’t say anything more, and Finn’s relieved when he sits across from him on the couch. “Alright. Where did you want to start?”

Finn always likes running lines with Kurt; Rachel can get sort of...distracting, when they’re working together, and Kurt is also just really good at it. Sure, he can get bitchy sometimes (a lot of the time, recently) but he manages to never make Finn feel stupid, the way Rachel can sometimes, or guilty.

“Finn. Finn. Finn Hudson. Earth to Finn.” Finn snaps out of his reverie to see Kurt staring at him, jiggling the script impatiently in his hand. “Where do you want to start?”

“What? Oh, right.” Finn tries to flip through to his first scene, but he’s not really taking anything on the page in.

“Finn, are you sure you’re okay?” There’s a little bit of concern woven into Kurt’s tone along with the annoyance.

“Yeah...”

“Finn.”

“What?”

“What’s going on with you and Rachel?”

Finn shifts uncomfortably. Under Kurt’s glare he feels like he’s just been called into the principal’s office without really knowing why, except that he can’t quite convince himself there wasn’t a good reason for it. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know, but every time you mention your play she looks like she’s going to cry or kill something. And, in my experience, that kind of reaction out of Rachel never ends well for anyone. Usually especially me.” Kurt flicks his fingers irritably.

“How am I supposed to know? Every time I bring it up she just gets all...pouty. And flouncy.” Finn’s not sure if these are real words, but they certainly apply to Rachel. “And I end up feeling guilty and I don’t even know what I did wrong!”

Kurt seems to consider that for a moment, tilting his head and staring past Finn to a point on the wall behind him. “Did you ever think that Rachel might be jealous?”

Finn blinks in surprise. “Jealous? Of what?”

Kurt crosses one leg over the other, and Finn braces himself for a Lecture. “This is Rachel we’re talking about. She’s worked her whole life to come to New York to perform, and you just wanted to...play football, or whatever, until last year, and now you’re both here and you’re doing, for now, at least, better than she is.”

Really, where does Kurt get off giving relationship advice? “Hey, man, don’t make me feel guilty too!”

“I’m not trying to, Finn, listen. It may be kind of selfish of her, but I think Rachel’s feeling unappreciated, and probably kind of lonely. Maybe you could just try to find some time to spend with her, remind her that she’s special?”

Finn is confused. “But she is special, she knows that.”

Kurt just shakes his head. “No, she _should_ know that, but this is Rachel, and you’re always going to be the person she cares about impressing the most. So just...let her know that you’re impressed. You’ll both be a lot happier.”

Finn flumps back into the couch and squirms his shoulders in the cushions feeling, somehow, even guiltier. “That sounds like something Blaine would say. Are you guys tag-teaming us?”

Kurt just gives him an odd look. “Blaine and I don’t talk, Finn.”

“What? Like, ever?”

“No, Finn.” Kurt’s doing his exasperated mentor voice, but he’s not meeting Finn’s eyes.

“But you guys - live in the same apartment. How does that even work?”

Kurt creases out the spine of the script. “We have a system. It turns out we _are_ very compatible in that regard.” Yeah, he definitely sounds more bitter than mentor-like now. Finn thinks about Rachel’s crazy plan, wonders if she knows about this. Probably. How is that possibly going to work if they never even _talk_?

Kurt uncrosses and recrosses his legs, creases his script again. “Come on, Finn, we came back here so you could practice. Where do you want to start?”

Finn sighs, sits up again, picks a scene and tries not to worry about Rachel in any respect.

*

The ceiling, Kurt thinks, is sort of like a snowfield.

The lamp is throwing cool-warm shadows, gradations of light, up above the walls where it undulates with the gentle deformities in the plaster, and with the hush of late, late night in the apartment it could almost be the quiet of an Ohio snowfall, just white blanketing the world and tucking it into stillness...

A clatter at the door snaps him out of his half-dozing reverie, shatters the crystalline shadow-winter into the dull, frightened passivity of late city autumn, and Kurt cranes his neck up off the arm of the couch to stare at the door.

There’s faint scraping, a metallic slide as a key misses the lock once, twice, before it slides home, and fuck. Kurt needs to get out of here right now, what the hell is he doing home he was supposed to be with Rachel tonight -

The door swings open before Kurt can pull his scattered brain together enough to move, and it’s hard to tell which of them is more startled, Blaine or Kurt. They have rules about this, unspoken, but rules nonetheless, for our collective sanity I will not see you and you will not see me, like somehow I can sleep ten feet from you and forget you exist...

But after half a minute Blaine just blinks at him, and turns away, and there’s a burn in Kurt’s chest that isn’t supposed to be rejection. Slowly, carefully, like if he’s silent he really can pretend to not exist, Kurt picks up his laptop from the floor and folds it closed, toes his shoes back on. In his peripheral vision he can see Blaine kick his own shoes off and then stagger and catch himself on the bathroom doorframe. Oh, god, is he drunk? He should never left him alone at that party with Rachel.

Kurt absolutely, positively needs to get out of here, but closer - and when did he get to the hallway? - Blaine really doesn’t look good. His face is pale, his eyes glassy, and he’s shivering, just a little, and no wonder, he came in without a coat.

“Are you okay?”

Blaine blinks at him, focuses with obvious effort. “Why are you here?”

It’s the first thing Blaine’s said to him in six months, and Kurt doesn’t know if he means _why are you in the hall_ or _why aren’t you in your room right now_ or _why are you still in my life_ so he doesn’t answer, doesn’t even have time to answer, when Blaine goes pale - paler - and bolts inside the bathroom.

They really do have the most screwed up living situation in the history of bad breakups, and Kurt’s muscles do not acknowledge any option other than leaving his things on the coffee table and tapping lightly on the bathroom door before pushing it open. Blaine has slumped himself against the wall beside the toilet and is breathing unsteadily; when Kurt walks in he tries to push himself upright but Kurt puts a hand on his shoulder and keeps him in place. Blaine’s still shivering, so Kurt flips on the space heater they’re not supposed to have but do because Blaine is always cold in the mornings.

“What happened to your coat?”

“Rachel forgot hers. I forgot how cold it was.” Blaine leans a cheek on the tiled wall, looks Kurt up and down with dark-circled eyes. “She walked me home. She asked about you.”

“Of course she did.”

“She asked if I was still mad at you.”

Kurt’s ears are turning red; he can feel the heat curling through them even through the cloud of warmth the little heater is putting out. The next question is obvious, but Kurt doesn’t want to know the answer, doesn’t ask. Instead he flips up the lid of the toilet - Blaine is breathing steadier now, but no point taking chances - and soaks a washcloth in the sink. Blaine is quiet again until Kurt kneels next to him and starts dabbing at his face, which has gone from pallid to flushed as the room heats up.

“I thought I was imagining you.” He nuzzles into the washcloth when Kurt swipes it down the side of his face.

The cloth is dripping; Kurt wrings it out tighter in the sink and refolds it to find a cooler patch. “You’re not.”

“Did I say something stupid? Don’t answer that.”

Kurt has to check the grin; drunkenly self-aware Blaine is stupidly endearing - more endearing, at least, than drunk and clueless Blaine. “As long as you were just _talking_ to Rachel I think you’re fine.”

Blaine shuffles himself against the wall and stretches his legs out. “Ugh no.” Even his look of childish disgust is endearing. “I don’t like kissing girls. I like boys.”

Kurt hangs the washcloth over the edge of the sink. “Yes, Blaine, I think that’s pretty well established.”

“I liked kissing you.”

Kurt - has no response to that, only the flutter of his pulse he can feel in his own chest. He swallows, tries not to look at Blaine, tries to think of something to say. “Do you want some water?” The cup Blaine uses is on the second shelf above the towel rack, and Blaine watches him as he fills it, drinks carefully while Kurt holds it steady for him. When it’s empty Kurt tips the rim away and smooths a palm over Blaine’s damp forehead. “Do you want more?” Blaine shakes his head, still watching him too closely, and Kurt sets the cup down and tries to think what to do next; Blaine drunk is a limp, heavy weight, too much for Kurt to carry on his own, but they can’t just stay here on the floor all night.

“Even I know that was a stupid thing to say.” Blaine rolls his head away, apparently contemplates the shower curtain for a long moment. When Kurt doesn’t reply, Blaine tips his head back to look at him. “I hate you.” His voice is sharp, and Kurt feels suddenly cold, all the ways this night is wrong now swimming in his brain, confusing him. He tries to think logically. Bed - he needs - to get Blaine to bed. He’s a mess, Blaine doesn’t know what he’s saying, they’re both exhausted, yes, bed - Kurt tries to get an arm around Blaine’s shoulders but he shakes him off. “I _hate_ you.”

Blaine does know what he’s saying, and Kurt needs to calm Blaine down, quiet him, shut him up so he stops _saying_ that. “I know you do, baby, I know you do, shh, come on, we’ve got to get you -” Kurt’s voice is thin in his own ears and Blaine’s shaking his head and pulling away and Kurt can’t get any leverage on the tile floor and he slips, nearly falls on top of Blaine, catches himself on the sink.

“Hey,” backed into the corner by the shower Blaine somehow gets his knees under him, levers himself up with the edge of the tub. “Don’t cry. Oh, god, Kurt, don’t cry.” Kurt doesn’t know what Blaine is talking about until Blaine’s fingers are on his face and come away wet. Blaine’s looking between his hand and Kurt’s face with something like horror and Kurt heaves a deep breath in, hating himself for sniffling.

“Come on, we have to get you to bed, just, come on Blaine -”

Somehow Kurt gets an arm snug enough around Blaine’s waist to keep him upright, Blaine babbling apologies as they stagger like some four-legged creature out of the bathroom and into Blaine’s room, where Blaine tumbles gracelessly onto the bed. Kurt doesn’t even bother to try to get him under the covers, just pulls the throw from the foot of the bed up over him. He wipes his eyes on his sleeve and is just leaving to fill another glass of water and get the aspirin when Blaine grabs his arm again. “Stay?” His eyes are wide.

Ever since Blaine walked through the door, Kurt realizes, he has been waiting for this. Not consciously, maybe, but expecting it: an inevitability, and he aches for it. Blaine’s bed, and Blaine, warm and familiar, and through the bafflement and the confusion and even the hurt it is a physical struggle not to fall into them, and he makes himself pull out of Blaine’s grasp. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Even in the dark, Kurt can see Blaine’s eyes go hard and flat, and his hand pulls back as though Kurt had burned it. “Why are you here?” he asks again, coldly.

Kurt still doesn’t have an answer.


	3. Week Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Kurt had imagined living with Blaine in New York, he had never imagined this.

_Week Three_

This time, it’s Kurt who’s startled into the headlights when he unlocks the door, tired and still damp from the rain, to see Blaine standing in the kitchen, refrigerator door held open with a foot, examining the contents of a tupperware container. Kurt hugs his bag to him and tries to dodge unseen into his room but Blaine turns at the sound of his footsteps and holds out the container.

“I made dirty rice last week, I don’t know if you had dinner or anything but do you want some?”

The question, the tone, Blaine’s voice and posture, are all so utterly _normal_ that it stops Kurt in his tracks. “Um. Sure. Thank you,” he stammers out, before he can think it through fully, and Blaine just turns and puts the rice in the microwave, pulls down another plate. Kurt makes himself stop watching, forces reluctant feet to move to his room, hangs up his coat, sets his bag neatly on his desk. When he gets back to the kitchen Blaine is gone, but there’s a plate of warm rice and chicken sitting on the stove. Kurt really is hungry so he fills a glass of water at the sink, takes the plate and a fork, and returns to his room.

He’s got an essay open on his computer and is two bites in before he stops again, fork frozen. Blaine had offered him _food_. He hasn’t done that in six months. Barring last night they hadn’t _spoken_ in six months and now Blaine is making him dinner - leftovers, whatever, and is this an...olive branch? Does Blaine even remember what happened last night? Or, oh, god, he’d been so upset by the time Kurt had crept out of his room, maybe he’s decided to move onto sabotage, what is in this stuff, what is it going to do to his complexion he has another audition next week he’ll have to step up his skincare routine and what if it’s poisoned? Food poisoning - and Blaine could sidestep any blame, say it was just an unfortunate reaction to some of the spices Blaine likes and Kurt’s not brave enough to experiment with, and use the accusation to convince people that Kurt’s paranoid, which is _absurd_ , because -

This is _ridiculous_. Kurt makes himself finish the rice, and the essay.

*

In his room, Blaine pushes aside his empty plate and pulls his laptop towards him. What was he thinking? Making dinner for Kurt (no, it had been leftovers, it really had been, and he wasn’t going to be able to finish them on his own before they went bad), was he crazy? What did he think was going to happen, everything about last night and last June was just going to disappear? He doesn’t even want it to. Kurt’s just manipulating him, that’s what it is, confusing him and making Blaine think he wants something he doesn’t and all those stories that Finn told that Blaine had wanted to hit Finn for repeating in high school, about Kurt bratty and stubborn and obtuse and relentless, and now Kurt is doing exactly those things. Blaine should have just...poisoned his food, or something.

...Oh god. Had he seriously just...? Blaine’s been reading too many fantasy novels late at night when he can’t sleep. And if Blaine starts fighting back (How? How can you fight with someone you’re not dating and not speaking to?) then he’s just toying with Kurt, too, messing with his emotions just like Kurt did to him and Blaine _can’t_ be a hypocrite. He buries his head on his arms. What is going _on_?

*

Rachel almost ignores her phone until she sees the caller ID.

“Hello?”

“Blaine got me dinner.” Kurt sounds confused, baffled, bewildered. Rachel skips in place and beams, then tries to keep the expression out of her voice.

“Oh!”

*

Blaine rummages through the cupboard. It has to be here, he put it right next to the coffee filters yesterday morning. Where is it? It was almost empty, but he’d been sure he had enough for tonight...

He finds the empty creamer container in the trash when he goes to dump yesterday’s coffee grounds, and in the recycle bin by the door is the bottle of Kurt’s soy-vanilla-whatever-the-hell-it-is, empty. Kurt hates powdered creamer. He’d never have used Blaine’s, much less finished it. Except that he obviously did. Unless it was Rachel? Or Finn. It could have been Finn. Yes, certainly Finn.

When he asks Rachel about it later, she just gives him a funny look, and says no, Finn had been with her last night, and hadn’t been to their apartment since the week before.

“Why?”

Blaine is disconcerted by the keen look of interest in Rachel’s eyes. Did Kurt do that on purpose, so Blaine would ask Rachel, and then Rachel would tell Kurt that he had asked? Well, Blaine won’t give him that satisfaction.

“Oh. Nothing. I just...Finn’s been busy with the play, was wondering what he’s been up to.”

Hopefully, the annoyance that crosses Rachel’s face at that distracts her.

*

“Rachel!”

“Yes, Kurt?”

“Did I leave my keys at your place?

“Wha-? Kurt, it’s six in the morning.”

“Yes, and I have an early shift at the theatre and my classes run late today and if I don’t have my keys...”

“Hold your horses, Kurt, just a minute, I’m looking.”

“Where the hell are they...I could have sworn I put them...if he took them I swear to god this is _not_ the situation for practical jokes...”

“No, Kurt, I’m sorry, I don’t see them anywhere here.”

“Damn it! Oh, shit, I’m going to be late, bye Rachel thanks...”

*

Blaine props his feet on the coffee table and shifts awkwardly to dig out something from the cushions that’s just jabbed his hip. He looks blankly at the keyring, filigreed silver _K_ jangling alongside heavy brass theatre keys, a flimsy office drawer key, the plain utilitarian key whose twin is snapped on Blaine’s lanyard along with his school ID. Kurt has work today, and class, he’d have torn the apartment apart looking for these before he’d leave without them, and he’s definitely gone, Kurt wouldn’t have just left his keys...unless he meant to...

Blaine looks at the clock, calculates the time Kurt gets out of class, how long it’ll take him to walk back if he stays late to ask any questions, when he’ll get here if he doesn’t. What if Kurt left these here, on purpose? Knowing Blaine would have to let him in. That if Kurt got Blaine to meet him at the door then maybe they’d...talk, or, something. Is that Kurt wants, to talk? He could just knock on Blaine’s door if he really wanted to...but Blaine might not answer, and it’s not like Blaine could leave him out in the hallway all night.

*

Kurt feels ridiculous, knocking on his own door, and even more ridiculous when Blaine opens it without saying anything, looks him up and down, some absurd pantomime of a date.

“You forgot something.” Blaine takes a step back so Kurt can come inside, and holds out a hand, Kurt’s keyring in his palm.

Kurt takes them gingerly, tries not to brush Blaine’s hand with his fingers as he does.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, and then hikes his bag higher on his shoulder and sweeps off to his room. If Blaine stole his keys just to orchestrate some silly doorway encounter, he’s going to be sorely disappointed, because Kurt is not going to talk to him. And if he took them just to be a dick, then Kurt is _really_ not going to talk to him, because he does not have time for these childish games.

Except.

If Blaine _did_ do it, and not as sabotage, what does he want to talk about? About the stupid creamer? That was nothing, Kurt had been desperate, he’d replaced it the next day anyway.

Maybe...it’s...something else?

No. It’s nothing else. There’s nothing else to talk about.

*

From: Kurt  
To: Rachel  
 _I think Blaine took my keys_

From: Blaine  
To: Rachel  
 _What’s going on with Kurt?_

From: Rachel  
To: Kurt  
 _He had them?_

From: Kurt  
To: Rachel  
 _Yes. Right when he opened the door for me._

From: Rachel  
To: Blaine  
 _What do you mean?_

From: Blaine  
To: Rachel  
 _I think he’s trying to...talk to me, or something._

From: Kurt  
To: Rachel  
 _He’s either trying to talk to me or is out to ruin my life._

From: Kurt  
To: Rachel  
 _Are you involved in this? What is going on, Rachel Berry?_

From: Rachel  
To: Kurt  
 _No! Honestly. I don’t know anything about it._

From: Rachel  
To: Blaine  
 _Why don’t you just try to talk to him, then?_

From: Rachel  
To: Kurt  
 _Why don’t you just talk to him?_

*

Kurt rifles through the pile on the kitchen counter, rifles through it again. Nothing. He looks at the clock, sighs, finds a piece of paper and a pen.

_Where is my RSVP card?_

When Kurt gets back after his afternoon class, there’s a note over his.

_I dropped yours & mine off at the post office this morning. They’ll go out faster that way._

*

“He mailed my letter.”

“What?”

“He _mailed_ my _letter_.” Across the table, Kurt is practically vibrating, and Rachel keeps her expression carefully schooled.

“That’s very thoughtful of him.”

“It’s incredibly thoughtful of him. And it’s not like he needed to do it or anything, I mean, it wasn’t necessary, I could have dropped it in a mailbox on my way to school but this way it’ll get to Miss Pillsbury like a day sooner and you know how she is with deadlines and organization.”

Rachel puts forth every trick she’s learned in the last year and a half into keeping her face and voice neutral. “It’s a very Blaine thing to do.”

“It is! He used to...all the time...” Kurt’s eyes flick up to hers from where he’s been diligently shredding the rim of his coffee cup. “Do you think it means something?”

Rachel takes a sip of tea. “That he thought of you while he was making plans for a wedding? I don’t know, Kurt, what do you think?”

She knows instantly that that was a mistake. Kurt’s face falls, and his excitement turns cold. He pushes away his tattered cup and gets to his feet. “You’re right, it’s nothing, I’ve got to go, sorry Rachel.”

*

“Blaine?”

Blaine hesitates, for just a moment, before he leans back in his desk chair far enough to be able to see out the door. Where Kurt is. Leaning. On his door. “Yeah?”

“When are you leaving for Lima?”

Blaine blinks, stares at Kurt there in his doorway. He can’t see past the absurd normality, the familiarity, of his posture. “Um. I’m not sure. I was thinking Friday after class. Maybe Saturday morning?” Oh god, did his voice just squeak? Why does Kurt want to know? Probably so he can leave later, have a night with some random boy alone in the apartment, despite their chief unspoken rule (it had been chief, at least, until Kurt had pulled away from Blaine in his bed and they’d needed a new one, had never even considered that possibility until it was almost too late).

“Okay.” Kurt doesn’t say anything else, just turns and disappears into his room; Blaine can hear his chair squeak as he sits down, just on the other side of the wall. Blaine stares at his notebook but can’t see it.

What if that is the reason?

What if it’s not?

*

Rachel lets out a little squeal of delight from the couch, where she’s curled up with a score and her phone. Finn glances up at her as she thumbs to the next text.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s working! I really think it’s working.”

“What’s working?”

Rachel ignores the tinge of annoyance in his voice. “The _plan_.”

Finn looks mildly more interested, for a moment, at least. “Really? Did they like sit down and talk about stuff? About their fight and everything?”

“No...” Rachel looks down at her phone, skims through the messages.

“‘Cause I know you said communication is really important whenever we’re, like, arguing or whatever...”

“No, but Kurt thought Blaine took his keys - I mean, he didn’t, but Kurt thought he did, and I think they talked about that, and then Kurt asked Blaine when he was going to Ohio for Mr. Schue’s wedding -”

Finn frowns, and Rachel resists the urge to make a face. “So that’s your big breakthrough? They said, like, three words to each other?”

Rachel feels like cold water has just been dumped on her. She holds her phone tight to her chest, swallows. “Why would you say that?”

“Because it’s true. Come on, Rachel, don’t be ridiculous. They broke up, Kurt’s moving out, and now they’re being normal exes instead of creepy weird exes who are trying to pretend they don’t exist. That the other one doesn’t exist. I mean.”

Rachel fights back a sudden surge of panic. Is Finn right? Is she just making things worse? So Kurt and Blaine are talking again - and yes it has been more than three words, _thank_ you Finn - what if they just continue...coexisting, peacefully, without the longing and the drama? What if they just drift into functionality and..drift apart? What if she and Finn keep drifting like that, too, stuck together but not _really_ together, each of them wishing they were somewhere else...

No. This is going to work. This _has_ to work. Rachel picks up her phone again

*

Finn’s still giving her his this-really-isn’t-a-good-idea look when Rachel turns around to open the door. She ushers Blaine in, hangs up his coat, offers him tea (he declines). He’s settled on the couch and has mercifully distracted Finn with chatter about the latest Buckeyes game when the buzzer rings again. Finn gives her another doubtful look, but Rachel just tosses her hair over her shoulder.

“Hi, Kurt!”

“Hi, Rachel...” Kurt trails off as she leads him into the living room, and even she can’t miss the way his posture stiffens and Blaine’s eyes widen as they enter. Kurt comes to a halt just inside the door and folds his arms over his chest. “Rachel, what are you doing?”

“Practicing for Mr. Schue’s wedding, of course!” Rachel pretends not to see the look of warning Finn is giving Kurt over her shoulder now as he grabs a folder off the end table and starts handing out sheet music. “We’re going to do duets!” Blaine fumbles the sheets she thrusts into his hands, and Kurt has gone very still. “Finn and I will of course begin, and Tina has assured me that she and Mike will be prepared to join us as well, which leaves you and Blaine on the third part -”

“Rachel.” Kurt’s face is pale, but there are spots of color high on his cheeks. Blaine, on the couch, is frozen, watching him warily, his hands clenched white-knuckle tight on his knees. Finn, she can see out of the corner of her eye, is giving Kurt a wide-eyed look in brotherspeak that she just knows translates to ‘I don’t have anything to do with this!’ “No.”

Kurt doesn’t even move to take the music she’s offering him, and when he crosses his arms over his chest his hands are shaking. His eyes flick over her shoulder, from Finn, to Blaine. “This is not happening.” He turns on his heel.

Finn winces but looks resigned. Blaine makes a sudden aborted forward movement and then sags back into the cushions, face stormy as he watches Kurt storm off. Both flinch when the door slams, and Rachel feels like it’s her own heart that cracks. She had been so sure - of course songs wouldn’t fix everything but making them work together for this number had been such a good plan. They’d fallen in love over a song, hadn’t they? They could again! She’s still watching the door, turning over in her head how to fix this, move past it, when Blaine’s voice comes from behind her, sudden and sharp.

“What the hell are you doing, Rachel?”

She spins again to face him, doubt and humiliating already making their slow cold way into her stomach. “I’m trying to help you!”

“Well, stop it!” He’s on his feet now, and as sweet and unassuming as Blaine usually is Rachel had forgotten he could be like this, too, color high on his cheeks, eyes snapping in anger. “ _That_ is _over_. I see what you’re doing, and just, just _stop_ , you’re just going to make things worse. Kurt doesn’t know what he wants! And you can never keep your hands off of other people’s lives, why do you always have to interfere, you can’t let him rule my life anymore!” Blaine’s weight - shifts, and then she’s no longer sure what is happening and suddenly Finn is there between them. Blaine holds his ground until Finn puts a hand out to hold him back.

Finn’s face is dark. “Hey. I don’t care what your issues are, man, don’t talk to my fiancee like that.”

Blaine glares up at Finn, hands clenched at his sides, and Rachel wonders for an instant whether they’re actually going to come to blows. She puts a hand on Finn’s elbow, just in case, but before he can pull it away in irritation Blaine spins and stalks away. He grabs his coat on the way, and then the door slams behind him, too.

Rachel sags back against Finn and lets herself grieve, just a little, for her friends, and be hurt, a little bit more, by Blaine’s accusations. She hadn’t meant to make things worse, it’s not fair to blame _her_ for the fact that Blaine can’t get his act together. The bright hope of the last few weeks fades and constricts around her, and the apartment seems dull, and flat.

Finn’s arms wrap around her from behind, and Rachel takes a heavy breath and rests her head back on his shoulder. “It’s gonna be okay,” he says into her hair, even though he was totally right and this was a stupid idea and maybe Kurt and Blaine will never speak to her again but... Finn’s arms tighten around her. And maybe everything isn’t hopeless, after all.


	4. Week Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Kurt had imagined living with Blaine in New York, he had never imagined this.

_Week 4_

Kurt’s walking home when it happens. It’s been another long day in a week of long days, and he’s counting down the hours now until his flight leaves from JFK, but he can’t quite yet wrap his mind around the idea of leaving. All of the last-minute things he has to do before the wedding have piled up and his planner is a mountain of uncompleted tasks and he just feels tired, and wishes his week home wasn’t going to be so busy.

Item number 17 on his list is _finish applications for spring sem jobs_ and as he’s crossing the street between the lecture halls and the library his phone chirps with an incoming email. It’s from his boss at the theatre: they want to make the position permanent, or at least bring him on part time if he’s interested, would he please consider...?

Yes, he most definitely would. Kurt crosses the street again in the opposite direction and heads for home; forget the library, he wants to write a proper reply to this right away. It’s the best news he’s gotten all week, the best he could have hoped for, and he can’t wait to tell his dad, he can’t wait to tell Blaine -

Wanting to tell Blaine has happened a thousand times before. Interesting lectures, stories from class, crazy people on the street, bad days at work, the impulse has always been there to share them all, and sometimes it’s seconds but then sometimes it’s hours before he remembers that he can’t, and hurts all over again.

Remembering comes quickly, even as the urge to share is so strong that he’s thumbing to Blaine’s name in his phone. Kurt swipes his thumb over the screen, clearing his contacts away, and waits for the light to change and the hurt to come.

It...doesn’t, though. Kurt stands at the corner and watches the signal count down and closes another button against a sudden gust of November wind and doesn’t feel it, doesn’t feel anything but delight at the offer and the ever-present tiredness lurking underneath. And that’s what’s different.

He tries to figure out this newfound calm as he walks familiar streets back to the apartment. After the madness of last week it feels unreal, even though it probably shouldn’t - there had been no real madness last week, at least, none that had existed outside of his own head. Kurt has no idea what happened at Finn and Rachel’s apartment last weekend after he’d left, but there hasn’t been a peep out of Rachel about Blaine or even about the wedding, except one short email with a new song (group number, solos, not duets, for everyone) attached. Whatever had happened, it had apparently been serious enough to deter even Rachel, and Kurt, to his surprise, feels at peace with that. If he’d made up all the chaos and craziness of last week, who knows what else he’d made up in his head? Blaine’s cold shoulders, the anxiety he can’t shake off every time he walks through his own front door, the hurt that flashed, so briefly, behind his eyes when Kurt had pulled away...nothing more than fever-dreams, fading hallucinations of a failed relationship. Not the first breakup in the world, and certainly not the last, and it’s odd that after all the time that’s the thought that gives Kurt the most comfort. He is Kurt Hummel, and he is fabulous, and he will get over this.

When he gets to the apartment Blaine’s door is cracked open, and Kurt can hear him on the phone.

“Yeah, it should get in at ten...no, Wes is going to pick me up, I’ll be home in time for lunch on Saturday. Alright. I’ll forward you the schedule Rachel made...yeah, I’ll tell her. ‘kay. Goodnight, Dad. Love you too.”

Kurt drops his coat and bag on the couch, and is turning on the kettle for tea when Blaine emerges from his room.

“Oh, hi, didn’t hear you come in.”

Kurt rummages for a mug in the cupboard. “Was that your dad?”

“...yeah.” Blaine’s hands are in his pockets, and he scuffs at a line in the tile with a socked foot.

Kurt pulls down a mug, the blue one with the cracked glaze from his father’s kitchen at home. Maybe this normalcy is something they can play at, for now, but he still can’t quite look Blaine in the eye. “I’m glad things are better. With him.”

When he turns to reach for the kettle, now boiling, he catches the look on Blaine’s face from the corner of his eye, and it’s intense, unsettling.

“Me, too,” Blaine says, finally. Before Kurt can say anything else, he’s taken a stack of books off the table under the window, and his door is shutting again.

*

_Dear Mom,_

_Forwarding you our itinerary for Friday. You guys are coming to the wedding, right? Rachel’s dad is picking us up at the airport so don’t worry, I know it’s kind of a late flight.I asked Kurt and he said he couldn’t get his shift changed so he’s still leaving Saturday. Um. Could you check and make sure that my dress shoes are at home? I can’t find them in the closet here and Rachel swears she never saw them when we moved in._

_Rehearsals are good. The show’s going to go up in January, I forget the exact dates. It’s not as fun as I thought it would be, actually. Rachel was so excited about performing that I thought it was going to be a lot cooler, like something for glee used to be, but it’s mostly just a lot of work. Everyone in the cast is really intense, and they don’t seem to really enjoy it that much. Rachel keeps saying that if I work really hard it’s all going to pay off in the end, but I don’t really like rehearsals at all. Maybe I just need to try harder._

_I didn’t know Kurt wasn’t calling home. I’ll give him a nudge about it if you want. He’s doing okay, I guess. He’s been helping me alot with my lines for the play, actually._

_Anyway, I’ve got to go. It’s my turn to do the dishes tonight and Rachel had another audition so I should go do that. Love you!_

_-Finn_

*

Wes is there waiting for him at baggage claim, and claps him on the back and then politely insists on taking his garment bag when it rolls through on the conveyer belt.

“So how’s New York treating you?” he asks, as they step through the sliding entrance doors of the airport and out into the parking lot. Blaine shrugs; he’d spent the whole flight preparing for the approximately eight hundred times he’s going to get asked that question this week, but for one of his oldest friends none of the prepared scripts really work.

“It’s hard. But I’m getting used to it.”

“And how’s Kurt?”

Blaine gives Wes a tired side-eyed look as they split around Wes’s car. “It’s really hard. But he found a new apartment - he’s moving out after the holiday.”

Wes pops the trunk open. “Good. You guys need some space.” He lays in the garment bag and takes Blaine’s suitcase from his unprotesting hands. “I’m sorry I wasn’t around last summer to help out.”

Blaine shrugs again and closes the trunk. Wes, doing a summer semester on the West Coast while the New Directions skewed away from Blaine in the force of Kurt’s fury; it had been nothing short of a miracle that Finn had started speaking to him again in late August, though Blaine had suspected that had more to do with Finn wanting to keep an eye on Kurt than anything for Blaine’s own sake.

Inside the car Blaine pokes at the knobs of the heater controls - New York is cold, but Ohio is cold - while Wes puts the car in reverse and navigates out of the parking lot. They’ve just merged onto I-75 when Wes turns off the radio and glances over at Blaine where he’s slumping into the passenger seat. “So when are you going to tell me what happened?”

It’s late and Blaine is tired and he does not want to be in Ohio, and he doesn’t even try not to be sullen. “I told you what happened.”

“Bullshit.” Wes manages to make even profanity come off as calm and collegiate. “You told me what happened after. I’m still wondering what made you pull a stunt like that in the first place.”

Blaine glares at him. “It wasn’t a _stunt._ ”

Wes gives Blaine a raised eyebrow. “Come on. I’ve known Kurt as long as you have. I know the plans you guys had. What on earth possessed you to _propose?_ ”

“If I tell you, will you take it seriously?”

“I take everything seriously.”

“...Yeah.” Blaine leans back in his seat, tucks his feet up on the dashboard. “Alright. Fine. Senior year was hard, okay? It was hard enough convincing Dad to let me transfer my junior year, but at least then I had Kurt to make up for Dad’s crap at home. And then Kurt graduated and moved to New York and I didn’t have anything, anymore. And Dad didn’t get why I wanted to go to New York - the whole time I was filling out applications he kept asking why I was chasing Kurt all over the country, why I never had any ambitions of my own, and I just got so _sick_ of it - I mean, I wasn’t going to New York just for Kurt, I’d wanted to go there for college even before I met him, but dad just wouldn’t _stop_.” Blaine glares out the windshield, at the pale lines on the road in the wide dark Ohio night.

“I tried to get my mom involved but she stayed out of it - kept saying it was something he and I had to work out on our own.” Blaine hunches his shoulders up to his ears. “And then I actually started getting into schools, and I don’t know if my dad finally realized that I really was going to go, no matter what he kept saying about Kurt and I, or what, but he just...snapped. We had this huge fight, and then he didn’t speak to me at all, until Cooper came home for a visit. I think they fought about it, too.”

That guilt clenches, old and sore, in his stomach; it’s one thing to be at odds with his father, another to bring his brother into the mess and create family-wide drama. “I don’t know what Coop said, but after that Dad tried to be supportive. He really did try. And things got better. He flew out to New York with me over spring break and helped me find the apartment. He really actually got along with Kurt when he came home for breaks. And then like two weeks before graduation, after I’d finished my last tests, he wanted to take me out on a “father-son bonding trip.” I was like... great, after all of this, all the progress, we’re back to this. But Coop made me promise to at least try, so I went.” Blaine scratches a palm over his jeans, the old worn denim dusty under his skin from a day of sitting and waiting in bus stops and terminals and airplanes. Wes hms, as if to prove he’s still listening.

“We went out to Indian Lake for the day, and I thought Dad would make me try fishing or something, but we just went hiking in the woods and around the reservoir. Then, when we got back to the car, Dad said he wanted to give me something, from Mom and from him.” Blaine draws a deep breath; he hasn’t told this part of the story to anyone, not to Kurt, not even to Cooper. “It was Mom’s engagement ring. They’d had the stone reset. Dad told me that he was proud of me, and that someday he wanted me to give the ring to whatever lucky young man I’d decided to make part of my life.

“After that there was just...nothing in the way. I felt so free. Kurt had spent all spring making floor plans of the apartment, and he kept calling me and emailing me with ideas and telling me how amazing next year was going to be, and then Dad gave me that ring and I knew it was for Kurt and that Dad finally just accepted me for who I was and I was _free_. Free to chase my own dreams. ...and Kurt was my dream.”

There’s a long silence, as Wes just drives. Finally he clears his throat. “You idiot,” he says, and reaches over to pat Blaine on the knee.

*

Kurt’s not there to see Blaine leave Friday afternoon but when he lets himself into the apartment later that night he can feel it, the difference in the space. It’s not just that the lights are out, not even a crack creeping from under Blaine’s door, or that it’s colder than normal until Kurt tugs the drapes closed and turns on the space heater. It’s not the silence that presses in uncomfortably even when Kurt flicks the TV on and pulls a tupperware container out of the fridge to reheat. It’s not even the stillness that prickles along the back of Kurt’s neck and makes him roll his shoulders uneasily. It’s something else, the odd blank quality to the air, as if the molecules themselves are hanging still and suspended when Blaine isn’t here to disrupt them.

The feeling chases him all through his evening routine, settling heavy around his shoulders as he eats and washes up, checks that his bags are packed and by his door for his departure after work tomorrow, showers and checks his email one last time. He tells himself that it’s just his imagination, that it’s just late and he’s a little bit freaked out being alone in the apartment, that missing Blaine like this is just one more habit he needs to get over because he’s making it all up in his head, anyway.

It’s a long time before he finally falls asleep, anxiety about this trip and the wedding and the stillness running at a low current through his stomach. When he finally does sleep it’s fitful, and confused, and jumbled together in his mind, dreams or memories or some odd amalgamation of the two, is Ohio, and high school, and Blaine.

Santana pushes him down the front steps of McKinley and he stumbles but skids as though it were a ramp instead of stairs. Finn catches him at the bottom and swings him around and it’s Sebastian who flings a cupful of ice in his face but Blaine whose hand is on his shoulder as he tries to scrub the stinging syrup out of his eyes. Sectionals, and no one will ever rain on their parade again and Blaine is somehow there, clutching Kurt’s hand as the New Directions win their first victory and Kurt would swear that he could fly. Summer nights turned cool, and Brittany and Sam lob water balloons at them until they’re all sitting around the firepit, shivering and trying to dry out as Puck plucks out “Hotel California” and harmonizes with Quinn who never limps and always dances. _You’re the love of my life_ and coffee and arms tight around him, a dead bird and Blaine, on one knee in his backyard and Kurt had never been happier, or more afraid.

Grey light is bleeding in from the living room and Kurt lies on his back and stares at the blue shadows it’s casting on the ceiling, and thinks, about everything he made up, and everything he didn’t.

His phone blinks to life when his fingers skim over it on the bedside table, and the text is sent before he can talk himself out of it. _Too quiet._

In the last hours between sunrise and his alarm sleep comes easy, and dreamless, and when Kurt wakes up again to dismal rain painting the windows his phone shivers with an alert.

_Missed Call - Blaine._


	5. Week Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Kurt had imagined living with Blaine in New York, he had never imagined this.

_Week 5_

*

It’s an odd non-event when Burt finally makes it back from the airport with Kurt. It’s been a year and a half since the boys moved out, and Carole’s still not used to their arrival back in Lima not being heralded with banging doors and floods of friends. Finn’s staying with the Berrys for most of the week - and isn’t sharing her son an idea she’s still getting used to, even if it’s been years since family has meant anything other than what they made of it. He and Rachel will both be here for Thanksgiving, though and that’s something to look forward to. It still feels strange when instead of Finn’s noisy, boyish energy there’s just the quiet sound of the key in the lock, and Kurt and Burt’s voices drifting softly into the kitchen. Kurt smiles when he sees her, and hugs her tightly, looking pale and too quiet without the enthusiasm personified that he’d been attached at the hip to for so long. Last summer she’d thought Kurt had changed but now she knows that she’s just getting to know him over again, not who he’d become but the way he’d been two years ago, during Dalton, before Blaine.

After dinner she offers to put in a movie but Kurt demurs, says he’s tired, that Mercedes is coming over early in the morning and he just wants to go to bed. Burt insists on helping him bring his bags to his room, over Kurt’s protests, and Carole follows them upstairs.

From the doorway of their room she can see Burt in Kurt’s doorway, the quiet dark room come back to life for a night. She can see Kurt’s slouch from here, the weariness he’d hidden in front of her, and she doesn’t have it in her to be hurt by that.

Burt’s voice is easy, a comforting rumble, but Kurt’s shoulders slink lower.

“Hey, kid, I know it’s not easy, being there, and that this trip home isn’t exactly a piece of cake -”

“Dad.” Kurt’s eyes are red-rimmed. “Thanks, but I can’t really do another feel-good talk right now. I’m sorry.”

“...oh.” Burt hovers awkwardly in the door for a moment before Kurt gives him a quick hug and murmurs goodnight, and then Burt is left in the hallway staring at a gently-shut door.

Burt’s shoulders slump, and when he finally turns away from the door to come back to the room he looks old. Carole can only imagine how he feels. It’s been hard enough, watching Rachel and Finn struggle with their relationship at a distance, but she’s always been able to count on trips home bringing them closer together, reminding them of who they are. It’s never easy watching your children hurt, but at least when they’re home Carole can at least try to help. But Kurt is still hurting, and now his door is closed.

*

Finn is sure, absolutely sure, that when he was in high school, the New Directions were not so... _tiny_. But here they are, tiny, and unfamiliar. The last faces he’d known had graduated last year, and where there had once been a half-dozen misfits now there are near twenty eager, baby-faced hopefuls looking up at Finn as Mr. Schue introduces him. Apparently the Class of 2012 is held somewhat in awe by this cohort, especially since the New Directions hasn’t won regionals, much less nationals, since.

Watching them, Finn thinks he can see why. To these kids, Glee is fun, and cool, something to do on an afternoon when there’s not something better to do. McKinley is easier now, and better, and that’s a good thing, but it also means that these kids haven’t had - or acknowledged that they’ve had - any depths to make the heights of victory and acceptance shine that much the brighter. He wouldn’t wish the slushies and dumpsters on anyone but he remembers who Kurt and Rachel used to be and who they’ve become and thinks that there really is something to be said for adversity.

“Thanks, Mr. Schue,” Finn grins at him before addressing the kids. “So, you guys are going to help us out with the wedding of the season, right?”

He’s met with a chorus of cheers - whatever they aren’t, they are at least enthusiastic - and shoos his old teacher out before picking up a whiteboard marker. “Okay, brainstorming time. What songs should we do?”

Half an hour later they have a decent list, and Finn sends two volunteers off to the computer to find the sheet music while he cues up the song they want for the procession on an iPod and starts the rest in on choreography. It’s not long before a tiny redhead in a Cheerios uniform rolls her eyes and pushes him aside and walks them through a more complicated (and coordinated) set, and Finn grins and stands back and lets her.

It’s fun, watching them, and Finn drums on a stool and conducts when necessary and breaks up a spat or two before they get out of hand. He misses being a part of the action himself, and he can’t wait for the group practice they have scheduled later that week, Old and New Directions combined. By the time five o’clock rolls around everyone is sweating and laughing and happy, and Finn feels at home in himself in a way he hasn’t since he graduated.

He’s locked the choir room with the keys Mr. Schue lent him and is heading out to the parking lot when he passes the choreographing Cheerio sitting on the front steps, a binder clutched tight to her chest and looking blankly out at the array of cars. He hadn’t seen it during practice, but there’s something in her face now that reminds him of Quinn, and he sits down next to her.

“Hey. Great job with those numbers. I was always hopeless when it came to dancing.”

The girl - Nora, was it? - gives him a side-eye and a smile that’s decidedly on the watery side. “Thanks. You were really good with the songs. Mr. Schue doesn’t always like the stuff we suggest.”

Finn grins. “I guess some things never change.” He watches her for a moment, and then bumps her shoulder with his. “So. What’s with the long face?”

Nora looks guilty, for a moment, and then rubs her eyes and sits up straighter. “Oh. It’s nothing. Really.”

“Hey, come on,” he jostles her shoulder again. “It wouldn’t be glee practice if somebody didn’t have a crisis. And I was sometimes pretty good at helping fix them. If, you know, I wasn’t the one starting them,” he adds reflectively.

She folds out her arms, looks at the binder decoupaged with magazine cut-outs and glittery stickers. “I guess...I just don’t really feel in a very...wedding-y place.”

“Why’s that?”

She looks away over the parking lot again. “My parents are getting divorced.”

“...Oh. Man, that sucks, I’m really really sorry.”

Nora shakes her head. “No, it’s fine. And I’m happy about it, really, at least this means they won’t spend all their time yelling at each other. But I just keep thinking...what’s the point of, like, relationships and marriages and stuff if they just end up making everyone feel crappy about everything?”

Finn thinks about that for a minute. “Sometimes they really do suck. And I guess people really do make crappy decisions sometimes, or just...don’t understand each other anymore. But if you find the right person it’s pretty awesome.”

She shrugs her shoulders high. “Easy for you to say. You’ve been engaged to like a Broadway star since your senior year. What do you know about anything sucky?” Her tone is pure teenager: sulky, and defiant, but under that, genuinely hurting.

“Yeah, but it took a while to get to that place, you know? We broke up about eight times before we finally stuck together, and one time she cheated on me with the same guy who had gotten my ex-girlfriend pregnant and then lied about it -”

Nora’s eyes are wide, and she blinks. “What?”

“Oh...yeah, sorry, Rachel always says I should warn people before I tell that story - “

“No,” she shakes her head. “I just mean...all that drama? Really?”

“ _Totally._ ” Finn breathes out, grinning. “ Glee club used to be a mess in high school, there was so much drama.”

Nora frowns.“But you guys are all so successful...I mean, there are pictures of you all over the school, and everybody still knows your names, and everytime something awesome happens to one of you Mr. Schue always is like ‘hey guys look what you can accomplish if you stick with Glee!’” Her voice is thick but her head bobbles with her sarcasm. “But - but then we still lose competitions -” her voice cracks, and when Finn tentatively puts an arm around her she buries her face in his shoulder. “And everyone just has these...perfect lives, and nobody cares or asks why I’m moving or why I don’t talk about my dad anymore...”

“Hey, hey,” he soothes. “ _Nobody’s_ life is perfect. Trust me. Whether they talk about it or not. I bet a lot of the glee kids have problems like yours that they just don’t talk about because they don’t think anyone cares.”

She gives a watery snort. “I doubt it.”

“No, really.” Finn grins as inspiration strikes. “Hey, are you coming to the big group practice on Wednesday?”

Nora nods against his shoulder and sits up, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. “Yeah, why?”

“I have an idea.”

*

It’s Miss Pillsbury, oddly, who finds him. He’s sitting on the edge of the stage, swinging his legs against the boards and trying to remember the song he’d auditioned for the New Directions with. The things you forget.

“Hi, Kurt! Wi - Mr. Schuester told me you’d driven over with Finn. It’s so good to see you again!”

Kurt hops off the stage to give her a hug; he’s always had a soft spot for sweet, jittery Miss Pillsbury, and they’ve always had an odd sort of closeness. Kurt supposed that when you throw up on another person’s shoes, it’s a point of no return for your relationship. Miss Pillsbury smile warmly at him and Kurt leans back against the edge of the stage and looks out over the empty seats. “It looks so much smaller than I remember.”

Miss Pillsbury turns to survey the auditorium. “You know, every year it seems a little bit bigger to me.”

Kurt remembers sitting on this stage, that awful day after Dave, planning for a future that would always have brightness in it. “You don’t ever get tired of it here? Wish you’d moved on somewhere else?”

“No,” Miss Pillsbury shakes her head. “Watching you guys learn and grow - it’s really something. I wouldn’t trade a day of it for anything.”

Kurt kicks a heel against the boards of the stage. It’s not like his old teacher doesn’t know the story - once a part of the McKinley gossip bell-jar, always a part of the McKinley bell-jar. “Even when we crash and burn?”

Miss Pillsbury folds her hand in front of her, rocks a little on her heels. “You didn’t crash or burn, Kurt.”

Kurt rolls his eyes. “Miss Pillsbury, _please_ \- “

“And I don’t think you think you did, either. Come on, now.” At Kurt’s look she just raises an eyebrow, just enough steel behind the doe-eyes to keep a whole dysfunctional school (mostly) in line. “You really think you failed?”

Kurt bobs his head, stares at his shoes. “I can’t exactly say I don’t have regrets.”

“What do you regret?”

Kurt sighs, ducks his head. “I never got to tell him why. Or why not.”

“Then maybe that’s a good place to start.”

“You say that like it’s easy.”

“It’s not. But when did Kurt Hummel ever shy away from something because it was hard?” She’s looking at him, appraisingly, head tipped and eyes earnest. It’s a look that reminds him, achingly, of Blaine, his sweet encouragement and unconditional belief in Kurt.

“If there’s anything I try to teach you guys, it’s to work as hard as you have to, to get what you want. I know you might not believe in yourself right now, Kurt. But I absolutely do.” She puts a gentle hand on Kurt’s arm. “I’m so glad you came, Kurt. I’ll see you Wednesday, right?”

“...yeah. Yeah.” Kurt looks up, blinking. “See you Wednesday.”

*

“Okay, everybody, take a seat! In a big circle, yeah, just like that.”

Blaine’s running a few minutes late and makes it into the auditorium in time to see Finn directing everyone into spots on the stage.

“Hey dude!” Finn waves to him when he climbs up on stage.

“...what’s going on?”

“Sharing circle! Pick a spot, come on, come on.” Blaine slides cross-legged in between Artie’s chair and a freshman he doesn’t recognize. It’s only when he looks up after hastily shoving his car keys into his bag and pushing it out of the way that he realizes he’s sat directly across from Kurt. Their eyes meet, briefly, and something paints a faint flush on Kurt’s cheeks but the eyebrow he raises is evaluative.

Blaine wants to lean across, wants to ask what it is that Kurt’s evaluating, but no matter how familiar this feels they aren’t in high school anymore, and their easy rapport during rehearsals, the looks and the whispers and the touches, isn’t theirs anymore.

Watching Kurt sit there across from him, calm and so self-assured, Blaine has to forcibly remind himself why it’s not.

“Alright, so!” Finn sits down himself, and at a nod from Mr. Schue begins. “Before we got started with rehearsal today I kind of wanted to talk to all of you. I was talking to some of you after class last time, and, I realized that some of you guys think that we all -” he gestures around the stage at what Rachel’s been calling the Old Directions, and Blaine awkwardly shifts his focus to take in not just Kurt but everyone around him. Everybody really did come back for this wedding, and seeing them all actually sitting in front of him doesn’t make it seem any less unlikely.

Finn goes on. “ - are some sort of rock stars.” Blaine has to grin at that, and he catches Kurt’s eye, almost by accident, and the smile Kurt gives him is small, but genuine, and knowing. “I think you think we never struggled, with anything, never faced any challenges, that life was just sort of always this awesome for us. And, I mean, don’t get me wrong, my life is pretty awesome.” Finn grins, and laughter ripples around the circle. “But it wasn’t always easy for me. High school was probably the hardest time in my life. And I never would have gotten through it without these guys, and Mr. Schue.

“Glee club is supposed to be...like a family. It’s about supporting each other through everything life throws at you. Because everything you go through makes you stronger, but nobody should have to go through life feeling like they’re alone. So I thought that, since we’re all together here, that we would go around and tell you some of the insane drama that we went through when we were in high school, and then you guys could tell each other some of the stuff that you’re dealing with. Now, you don’t have to tell your deepest darkest secrets, or whatever, but just...something that’s hard for you. Something you could use some help with. Because nobody here is ever alone.

“So. On that note, I guess I’ll start. Um. So, back at the beginning of high school, I was dating Quinn - “ he nods at her across the circle. “And, well, I won’t go into all the details, because I’m sure she’ll fill you in, but, she got pregnant. And it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with - and it was like eight hundred times harder for her - but Mr. Schue was there for us the whole time.”

Quinn does, indeed, fill them in on the rest of that story, and Puck adds his own contributions, and together they have the new-New Directions torn between fits of laughter and tears. One of the girls asks if they have a picture of Beth; Quinn passes her phone around the circle and Blaine takes a moment to look at it before he hands it off; a beautiful, healthy, three-year-old. Quinn tells them about her car accident, too, and Mike talks about his dad - Blaine hadn’t heard that story before, and feels a pang of sympathy and empathy. Everyone has a story, and it’s humbling and empowering at the same time, how much everyone has been through, and how brilliantly they’ve come through it all.

When it’s Kurt’s turn Blaine can see him chew the inside of his lip for a moment and then draw a breath, as if for courage, before he speaks.

“If any of you need tips for getting slushie dye out of dry-clean-only fabric, I think we could swap some war stories.” Some of the older students grin. “But the worst thing I ever did was actually after high school.” His eyes catch and hold Blaine’s before sliding away, but they keep darting glances back, like Kurt can’t help himself. “I let fear keep me from something that I really wanted.”

There’s a low buzzing in Blaine’s ear, a faint sparking in his stomach, and he can’t take his eyes off Kurt’s hands, his twisting fingers as he fidgets, and the underclassmen next to Kurt launches into a story that Blaine quickly loses the thread of.

When it’s his turn Blaine gets tongue-tied, like Kurt’s twining fingers are winding his thoughts into knots. He tries to make a joke about hair gel, means it to be about fitting in, and gets just a pitying look from one of the freshman girls, oh-look-at-the-poor-college-student-who-thinks-he’s-funny. Kurt’s hiding his mouth behind his fingers, now, but Blaine knows that he’s listening.

*

Thursday evening, after the turkey’s been eaten, the dishes have been washed and Kurt’s disappeared with his phone to conference with Tina and Mercedes over the last details they’ll have to take care of tomorrow, Finn stretches out on the couch and flicks through channels until Rachel pads in from the kitchen, where she’d been deep in conversation with Burt, and curls up under his arm.

He squeezes his arm around her shoulder. “Hey. How’re you doing?”

“Good.” Rachel smooths a hand along the front of his shirt and pulls her legs up beside her. “You were really amazing at McKinley yesterday.”

Finn shrugs, bashful. “I dunno. It just felt like the right thing to do, you know? And it felt good. Really good, actually, working with the kids like that.”

Rachel’s just silent, toying with the cuff of his sleeve, and Finn wonders if this is the right time to talk about the idea he’s been toying with since he pulled out of the McKinley parking lot yesterday afternoon.

“It felt better than anything I’ve done onstage since we graduated. Rachel, I know you love performing, and I know it’s been hard for you in New York so far, and I don’t want you to be jealous or disappointed or mad but...”

He trails off, and Rachel looks up at him, brown eyes big and wary. “It’s not anything bad!” he hastens to add. “At least, I don’t think it is. Rachel - I think I want to be a teacher.”

Rachel doesn’t say anything for a long minute, just tugs a thread loose from his sleeve. Finally she blinks up at him.

“You’re not doing this for me, are you?”

“What?” Finn’s taken aback. “No - why would I? I mean, how would it be...for you?”

Rachel ducks her head again. “Because I’ve been so - jealous of you. And I’m sorry, Finn, I know I shouldn’t be, and I love you and I’m so proud of you, I really am, it’s just been hard, watching you do so well. But I don’t want my stupid petty jealousy to keep you from doing something you really love.”

Finn’s shaking his head by the time she’s halfway through. “I love _you_. And I don’t really love performing. I mean, it’s fun, but at school yesterday...it just felt right, you know? I felt like I was doing something really good for the kids, and that I was getting something out of it too.”

Rachel’s lips curve into a small smile. “I love you too.”

“So I emailed one of my professors last night, and he got back to me just now. # works with one of those programs that does outreach with high schools in the city, you know, bringing instruments and music and stuff to underprivileged kids. He said he’d be happy to have me on as a volunteer in the spring. So...I’m going to finish out the spring semester, and work with them, and then if I don’t hate it for some crazy reason I’m going to transfer to an educational program in the fall. If it’s okay with you.”

Rachel sits up. “Of course it’s okay with me! Oh, Finn, you can do anything you want to, you know that. And if this is what you want to do, then, I will support you completely.” She wraps both of her hands around Finn’s. “Oh you would be an amazing teacher. I think this will be perfect. And,” she traces the a fingertip along his thumb. “If you ever change your mind, and land a huge role on Broadway, I will support you. No matter how many chorus parts I get stuck with in the meantime. I promise.”

Finn smiles, and kisses her hair, and hugs her close.

*

Rachel tells Kurt about Finn’s new plan as he helps her zip up her bridesmaid’s dress in the little church basement. He hums noncommittally, and his fingers as he does up the hook-and-eye are cold on the back of her neck. “But what if he does land a big role, Rachel? What if he does stick with performing, and not teaching? Don’t tell me you won’t be jealous. I will not actually believe you. Could you handle that? Could your relationship?”

Rachel heaves out a sigh, and Kurt reminds her with a gentle nudge to the ribs to stand up straight so he can tie on the sash. “I - don’t know. I hope so. I know this isn’t a permanent solution but - I want it to work. With him.”

“What if you had to choose?”

Rachel breathes sharply. “It’s not a _choice_ , Kurt. It’s not like ‘oh Finn gets seventy-five percent of my energy and my career gets the rest.’ It just is...what it is. I want both. And I am going to work so hard for both of them.”

Kurt takes her hand and twirls her around, runs a careful eye over the line of her dress. “I believe you will. Now. Let’s go celebrate.”

*

The wedding really had been beautiful. The event planner had been no Kurt Hummel - Blaine’s seen the pictures from Burt and Carole’s wedding, and the scrapbook he’s been helping Rachel with for hers - but the party hall is overheated and lovely, softly lit and gently perfumed with the flowers clustered on every table, humming with conversation and the music pumping onto the dancefloor.

The performances are over for the night, and now the New and Old Directions are spinning together, weaving in and out of the groups of Mr. Schuester and Mrs. Pillsbury-Schuester’s (and aren’t the freshmen going to have a time with that tongue-twister) relatives and friends. Not all of them are here - Blaine’s seen more than one odd or not-so-odd couple slip away, to return, or not, and the gossip mill on Monday back at McKinley and on Facebook is going to be fierce.

Kurt’s not dancing; he had, earlier in the night, with his girls and for one hilarious and touching number with Finn. Blaine had watched him, and missed him, and wished for things to be different. Now he’s at the table they’d all clustered around for dinner, fourteen people at a table meant for twelve jostling and joking and laughing and it was the most he’s seen Kurt laugh in months, bright and clear and happy and it had been heartache to watch him.

Kurt’s not laughing now, just sitting, perfect posture slanting a little, hand curled around a glass and watching the dancers with a thoughtful expression. When Blaine steps up beside him, breaking into his peripheral vision, he doesn’t start, just turns his head up, eyes clear in the soft low light, and does what Blaine really should have learned to expect by now - he zigs.

“Is this what you imagined for us?”

“Yes.” Blaine doesn’t know how else to answer that - a day, the happiest day, friends and family and music and love, so much love, and Kurt had said yes and then he had said -

“It’s not what I imagined.” Kurt looks sad, and Blaine doesn’t want to have this conversation, doesn’t want another rejection, doesn’t want to think about going back to New York tomorrow and listening to Kurt packing up and moving out. But when he starts to turn away Kurt puts a hand on his arm. “Wait. Blaine.” His tongue curls around the _l_ , liquid and familiar, and Blaine is a hopeless idiot but he stays, slides into the chair next to Kurt. Among the shadows and clustered tables around the edge of the room it feels hushed, and intimate, everyone’s attention and noise drawn off somewhere else, to the high energy of the dance floor.

“Look around, Blaine.” Kurt waves his hand at the room. “Is this what you really would have wanted? A second marriage, to a great second chance, after a painful and messy divorce from your co-dependent, high school sweetheart who you married right out of high school?”

“That’s not what I - “

“I saw us, in five years, in New York.” Kurt interrupts him, still looking sad but intent, too, like this is something he needs Blaine to understand. “Or maybe we’d have come back to Ohio. Rachel would have driven me nuts with plans and Cooper would have been the worst best man but you’d have had the best stories from your bachelor party. We’d have been living together for a few years, to give me time to train you to put the cap back on the toothpaste and for you to get me to stop being so uptight about closet organization. I don’t know who was going to propose - maybe I did, maybe it was you, maybe we talked about it and had some kind of agreement - but it wasn’t going to be something that we did because we were scared about whether we’d stay together in the future, because I wanted some kind of guarantee that you’d always be there. I wanted to marry you when we had figured out who we were, and where we were going, and when we were such a part of each other’s lives that getting married just made _sense._ ”

Something small and fierce in his chest is fighting against the hurt Blaine had so carefully constructed, so painstakingly maintained.

“Then why did you say _no_?”

Kurt’s smile is blue, and watery. “I was scared. I lived with Finn and Rachel for a year. I saw all the drama, everything they went through, and I just - I never wanted to have that to you. I know an engagement shouldn’t change things but it _does_ , there are expectations, and I just wanted to _be_ with you, without anything hanging over us, or ever worrying about moving so fast we lost each other - “

“Kurt, you could never lose me - “

“But I did, Blaine.”

The look Kurt gives him - jaw tight, eyes soft, amber and sapphire in the candlelight - it takes Blaine’s breath away, and breaks his heart.

“Why didn’t you just tell me this?”

Kurt swallows, and when he speaks his voice is thick. “I tried. I really did. But - the things you were accusing me of - it wasn’t fair, and it hurt, and then you said you couldn’t ever trust me again and I thought - well, then, what’s the point.” He shrugs, and old helplessness curving his shoulders.

“Then why now?” Somewhere, under the hurt, shame is lighting in his stomach, and after everything it shouldn’t make him angry, it _shouldn’t_ \- “If you were having doubts you just should have said no right from the beginning!”

“I wasn’t _having_ doubts. I thought that afterward I could walk it back and explain and you’d _understand_. I didn’t want to - in front of all of our friends? I didn’t want to do that to you. Or to me. God, can you imagine the drama?”

“Imagine the - Oh my god Kurt - ”

“I know. I know. That was a mistake, I know it was, and I really should have thought of a better way of handling it at the time but - but I didn’t. And I am so sorry.” Kurt takes in a deep breath, and blinks, but when he smiles again at Blaine the smile is real. “That’s why I’m telling you this now - I love you, and I never meant to hurt you, and I screwed up, and I’m sorry.”

This is - too much information to process, too much all at once, and last summer he’d been afraid of something like this, afraid of it and wanted it so badly, for Kurt to come back, to apologize, to explain, why the happiest two hours of Blaine’s life had ended so abruptly, in hurt and accusations and tears. He stands, and Kurt’s face falls, and in that instant Blaine is lost again, and all he has to do is decide whether it’s worth the chance.

“Dance with me?” he holds out a hand, and Kurt stares at it, stares at him, and then his face breaks, splits into a smile so wide his eyes crinkle, but just for an instant before he bites his lip, paints his smile over with caution. “Are you sure?”

“We won’t know til we try, will we?”

Kurt’s hand in his is cool, and soft, as Blaine pulls him to the dance floor. The rough-smooth fabric of Kurt’s jacket under his fingers as Kurt turns into him, close and then closer as Blaine wraps an arm around his waist and pulls him in. The steady sway as their bodies find the rhythm of the music and settle into it, comfortable and familiar. Blaine’s head spins with it, with the fickle certainty of Kurt in his arms again, and all the can do is hold on.

“I missed you.” Kurt’s voice is a low buzz against his shoulder. Blaine pulls him in tight, almost an embrace, and they’re moving slower than the music now but that’s okay, this is their own pace.

“I know.” For so long he’s fought it, and doubted it, but Kurt needs to hear this now, and he needs to say it. “I love you, too.”

Kurt’s eyes lift to his, and his eyelashes are dark and damp and there have been too many tears already tonight. Kurt should be laughing, and happy, and sure. Blaine drags a thumb under his eye, gathering moisture, and down his jaw, tipping Kurt’s face down, and kisses him.

Kurt’s mouth is warm, and soft, and he melts into Blaine’s arms until it feels like they’re both falling. Blaine clings to Kurt’s waist and his shoulder when Kurt parts his lips and lets Blaine in further, and it’s sweet and lush and full of promises, and hope.

When Kurt finally pulls back his eyes are shining. “Yeah?”

Blaine feels the smile crack his own face. “Yeah.”

Kurt’s hands are still on Blaine’s arm, in Blaine’s hair, as he looks around the room over Blaine’s shoulder. Blaine doesn’t want to even think about the whirlwind that’s going to break loose when Rachel finds them like this.

Kurt seems to have the same thought. “I think this party is going to be going on for a while. Do you want to - go for coffee, or something?” He looks so earnest, and a little shy, and Blaine can’t help the smile. He doesn’t remotely want to.

“Coffee would be _amazing._ ”

 

 

*

“I...can’t believe I didn’t speak to you for six months.” Blaine is sitting across from him, their old familiar table at the Lima Bean (thank god for their extended holiday hours), chin propped on a hand and looking at Kurt like he isn’t really sure this isn’t a dream. Kurt knows the feeling.

“Well.” Kurt runs a thumb under the lip of his cup, looks past Blaine at the new wallpaper they’ve put in since the last time he was here. “We always have excelled at drama.”

“Seriously, though.” Blaine is smiling at him, still obviously dumbstruck. “It just all seems...really ridiculous, now.”

“Maybe a little,” Kurt tips his head, gives a little grin. It does feel absurd, but the memory is still sharp, and painful, and they may be past it now but only by minutes, and yards. This whole night seems floating, dreamlike, and he’s still not sure if he should be shocked that they haven’t spoken, _really_ spoken, since June, or shocked that they’re here now, sitting across from each other in the old coffee shop that should feel more familiar than it does.

“It - probably would have been easier if I hadn’t had to spend so much time avoiding you. Do you have any idea how much mental energy it takes not to think about you?” Blaine’s head tilts on his palm, and his eyes are soft but there’s something still hard and a little bit scared behind them.

Kurt draws a breath in. “Actually, about that...”

Blaine shakes his head, drops his hand, curls both of them around his cup. “It’s okay, Kurt. I know.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do. Rachel told me.”

“Oh.”

“At first I just felt awful, and guilty - I wish I’d found another apartment first, I know how much you love that one. But I wasn’t really looking as hard as I should have been - I think that part of me just thought that one day we’d wake up and it would all be better, like nothing had ever happened - “

“Oh, Blaine.” Kurt touches his fingertips to the back of Blaine’s hand.

“I didn’t _want_ to not be with you, after everything that happened I just thought we couldn’t be, ever, because how could I trust you after that? I spent so much time wishing I’d never asked, and then the rest of the time trying to tell myself that I was glad that I had, because better to find out these things about you sooner than later...”

He trails off, and Kurt lets his hand drop from Blaine’s, and tries not to hurt though he’s pretty sure he deserves this. “I really never, ever meant to hurt you. That was...probably the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. But you can’t blame me for not being ready, Blaine.”

“I know. I know.” Blaine swallows, and his voice is getting thick again.

“And if you don’t want to wait for me - “ Kurt presses a palm to his own eye. This shouldn’t hurt, he’s already grieved for this lost relationship, there shouldn’t be any hurt _left_ \- “I...understand.”

“No.” Blaine wraps his fingers around Kurt’s, and holds on tight. “I want to try this. Again. With you. However long it takes.”

“Me, too.” Kurt squeezes his hand back. “I just think it’s going to be a lot less stressful if we’re not living in each other’s pockets while we try to. I don’t want to just...stumble back into things with you just because it’s convenient, or because I’m lonely or drunk.”

Blaine nods. “We’ll take things slowly.”

“Exactly,” Kurt breathes, relieved. He feels light, unfettered; he feels knots uncurling in his chest that had been there so long he’d forgotten what it was like to breathe without them.

Blaine leans forward a little, and drops his voice. “Just...how slowly is slowly? Because you look _gorgeous_ in grey, Kurt.”

Kurt - bursts out laughing, it’s so unexpected and familiar and _perfect_. “Oh my god. You. Are you done with your coffee?” Blaine nods, still grinning, and shakes his empty cup, and this could be a dream but it’s not and Kurt kind of feels like he could fly.

At the car, before Kurt can round the hood to get to the driver’s side, Blaine catches his arm, pulls him close and kisses him. “Ready to face the music?” he asks when he pulls back, smiling but eyes still serious, and Kurt smiles, and kisses him, and unlocks the car in answer.

Back in the reception hall Mercedes is _rocking_ something Lady Gaga, and Kurt can see the exact second Rachel notices them slip in hand-in-hand through a side door. Her jaw drops and then she _beams_ at him, and Kurt can see her looking around for someone to point them out to as he pulls Blaine forward, and spins him out to dance.


End file.
